Red Mana Crystal - Part 1 - Mine, Morlocks, and Mystery.
This adventure took place on Saturday the 18th of February. Players where Toby (Goliath Barbarian), Connor (Human Sorcerer), Hayley (Elf Witch), Francis (Elf Bard), Ewan (Dwarf Cleric) and Ben (Human Samurai). Hayden was Game Master. The Adventurers were heavily drinking to the memory of their recently deceased Paladin friend in the One-Eared Bugbear when they were contacted by John 'the Beard' Baird , a miner who lived in Grey. His ground had be attacked while they were deep underground by a group of bat-featured humanoids. The group rested for the night, and when morning came they set towards the Mines immediately, meeting John at the gates to the slums and taking them out to the mine, a mere half-hour walk away. They arrived at the mine with no trouble, noticing that the area was under lockdown. They were let through into the mine and guided by John to where they were attacked. Most of the party noticed signs of a struggle with drag-marks, footprints and a blood-trail leading further down into the mine. John chose to wait at the site to wait for any of the miners that the party managed to release. Further down the tunnel the adventurers found themselves in the doorway of an Ancient Dwarven ruin, perhaps some sort of Dreuger treasure vault, but found that some of the walls had been added by the bat-creatures. The Entrance area had some resemblance to a Hive, twisting a twirling about. Around the First Corner our brave heroes came across one of the creatures and mercilessly beat it to a pulp for Information, they gleaned that they had been taking miners to feed themselves and their master. It's at this point the Goliath, Seeks-more, snapped the neck of the obviously evil creature. There were no more encounters with the creatures until exiting the Hive, where two of them stood guarding a set of cages containing 5 of the missing miners. Seeks-More and the Samurai dispatched them with great haste and released the prisoners. The next hallway was trapped with a 3 Pendulum system, which Seeks-More dispatched of with ease. This lead into a peculiar revolving door, and then onto another hallway with a pressure-plate activated dart-trap, at the end of the Hallway was a large kitchen area where the 3 more of the creatures were busy cutting at the flesh of 3 dead Miners. The party spellcasters prolonged the battle casting spells to dazzle and daze their opponents, and the Monsters were eventually dispatched. The Next Room was ancient armoury containing old weapons rusted beyond use, the exception being a Magical Sword contained within a Chest. The Gas trap inside the box was "expertly disarmed" and the longsword within handed to the Samurai. Seeks-More, unable to stab one of the creatures in the Kitchen with the handful of darts retrieved from the Dart-Trap, charged into the room after the armoury taking a creature down instantly, and intimidating it's 2 remaining allies, a quick encounter ensued with the final combatant being taken down by The Desert-Elf Princess. The doorway in this room Re-entered the Revolving door room, and the adventurers noticed that if they had continued through to another doorway during their last encounter with this room, they would have been trapped between one of the segments of wall revolving the centre beam, and a wall of Razor-sharp blades. Continuing through the Revolving door they found themselves in a large Temple room, engraved with depictions of a meteor crashing down to the Erthoria 's soil. At an alter in the furthest part of the room stood an alter with 5 creatures worshiping at it, at the other side of the room (closer to the adventurers) stood a statue which was immediately identified by the Sorcerer to be a Gargoyle. The Samurai, with his new magical sword, took to the Gargoyle immediately, while the rest of the party took on the Creatures. A great battle was fought with the great Goliath Seeks-More being knocked to the floor twice, The Elven Sorceress familiarly using fire to solve her problems in the form of a bottle of oil and her spark spell, and a fair share of healing spells being used by the Dwarven Cleric. The Samurai crumbled the Gargoyle and turned the tide of battle by helping his allies mop up the rest of the creatures. After the conclusion of the battle Seeks-more freed the Prisoners, the dwarf took note to return and study these ancient ruins. This was when the party noticed on-top of the Alter an unusual sight; A Red Mana Crystal , they decided to return to the surface with the rest of the miners and take this to Mondain as soon as they had retrieved their handsome reward from John. At Mondain s the Adventurers gave The Teller the Red Mana Crystal to examine. Not Quite sure what he was looking at Teller requested the adventurers let him conduct a series of tests on the Crystal. After about 3 hours Teller notified them that the crystal had somehow absorbed the power of another crystal and contained a highly unstable amount of Energy, He offered the adventurers 200 Gold pieces with a warning: "Do not look back, and do not return for it, this crystal is better left forgotten then to be in your hands." Two Large Golems promptly escorted the party outside. Yet, Somehow, The Party know that this isn't the last they'll see of the Red Mana Crystal. Category:Quests